Gorski said jobs, education and crime should be getting the bulk of attention for what needs to be improved in our community. But health will get its due.

“At the steering-committee level and the conversations I’ve had, everybody understands that community health is essential to our moving forward as a community,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anybody who doubts that.”

The Rockford area consistently ranks poorly on local and national health care surveys. The Rockford metropolitan statistical area ranked 10th — tied with Green Bay, Wisconsin — on the list of the 10 most obese U.S. cities for 2012-13, according to Gallup and Healthways.

Winnebago County ranked 79th of 102 Illinois counties overall for health outcomes on the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It ranked 97th overall for health factors, which cover clinical care, health behaviors, social and economic factors, and physical environment.

Work is still happening behind the scenes to tackle priorities based on the 2010 Healthy Community Study, spearheaded by the Rockford Health Council. The study offered insight on such topics as access to medical and dental care, and behavioral health for residents in Boone and Winnebago counties.

“Crime, education and job creation, those all actually feed into community health,” Gorski said. “What I’ve found myself saying is, we have excellent health care in Rockford, we really do. But we don’t necessarily have a healthy community. So there’s a distinction there, and I believe everyone I’ve talked to in the Transform movement understands the difference between the two.”

Gary Kaatz, president/CEO of Rockford Health System, said skyrocketing health care costs are a huge motivating factor in trying to improve the health of the community. Health care spending is more than 17 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

Income, education and public health are more crucial in advancing health status of the community and longevity for residents than the pure number of hospitals and providers here, Kaatz said, referencing studies on the issue. As for Transform Rockford efforts, one key to success will be to focus on specific areas of improvement rather than attacking issues that are too broad.

“This community tends to take big things and make them bigger, and then they talk about them, and then we have five groups attack them,” Kaatz said. “And then people lose interest or it diffuses and nothing happens.

“I like this community. My wife and I wouldn’t be here for more than 14 years if we didn’t. It’s a well-intentioned community, and it’s properly motivated. Somehow people get caught up in the sexy terminology without defining the specifics.”

The health systems are collaborating to address obesity, although the plan is in its infancy. Dr. James Girardy, chief surgical officer at OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center, said the group has talked to other community groups working in this area, such as the Rockford School District, the Winnebago County Health Department and the United Way of Rock River Valley

“While none of this activity is formally under the Transform Rockford umbrella, it represents the spirit of Transform Rockford,” Girardy said. “We’re working to create a portfolio of current programs and look at those as a group and decide where to focus our efforts.”

If decreasing pediatric obesity rates is the goal, for example, the plan needs to focus on a certain age group, design strategies based on what other towns and organizations have done and then set a reasonable goal to achieve progress.

“If you look at a community like Rockford, you need to first make sure you’ve studied all the things that are already in the literature, and then get together the experts in a particular field, and design it so you can get a baseline on where the community is on that particular issue,” Kaatz said.

Becky Cook Kendall, executive director for the Rockford Health Council, thinks she has the right players at the table to direct health change in the region. The council’s board of directors includes members of health, government, private business, education and social service entities.

The council helps groups collaborate rather than develop and run overlapping programs. She thinks health hasn’t been in the spotlight enough in the Transform Rockford talks, but she’s confident it will be a priority in the next steps.

“Our voice needs to be at the table for shaping that whole vision,” Cook Kendall said. “We are going to align with them. Why should we go a different way? We’re all on a journey in this community, and we’ve got to work together to look at how do we deliver quality health for the residents.”

The health council is working on another survey of residents with more specific questions about behavioral health, chronic diseases and early-childhood needs, three priority areas identified from the Healthy Community Study data.

Melissa Westphal: 815-987-1341; mwestphal@rrstar.com; @mlwestphal

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